Charlotte messenger. [volume] (Charlotte, Mecklenburg Co., N.C.) 1882-18??, 1887-03-26
DRIVING SHEEP AT NIGHT.
QUEER NIGHTLY PROFESSIONS IN
NEW YORK STREETS.

Flocks of Sheep From the Country
on Their Way to the Slaughter
Houses-The Cosset.
Sometimes bit of quiet country life is
brought in and dropped down against the
roaring background of the city's swirl
and rush in such way that the most OBJ
tuse finds himself moralizing on the
strange contrasts the town affords. Take
these queer professions of sheep that are
driven through the streets from the North
River to the East every night. The
driver has the odor of country soil upon
his boots, the sheep bring with them
suggestion of green hills, and the very
dog, SO used to having his own way,
creeps close at his masters heels, awed
into semi-silence by the crush of great
piles of brick all about. The blcating of
the close-huddled flock and the crack of
the drivers whip echo all out of place
down in the deep canyons the buildings
make of the street.
1t isn't every thofoughfare that these
sheep take, and, unlike death, they
haven't all season for their own. Only
the streets above Forty second street are
open to them, and not a flock is allowed
to start before 10 o'clock at night. This
makes the thing all the more peculiar
the midnight march of the doomed ami
mails through the deserted streets to the
shambles. From 10 o'clock until or
o'clock in the morning there is an unin-
terrupted procession of fiocks across
town.
The favorite thoroughfare, and the
one almost exclusively used, is Sixty
second street. That leads up to the
transverse road through Central Park and
so on down to the slaughter houses at the
foot of East Forty fourth street. What
with the swearing of drivers, the bleating
and dust of the passing animals, the
barking of the dogs and the following of
wagons to pick up the halt and lame that
fall by the wayside, people living along
the line of march learn to bless this
nightly procession that lends variety to
their street and sleeplessness to their
homes. But in spite of police regula-
tions and Aldermanic ordinances, the
sheep continue to take the even tenor of
their way across town.
Still their way across is not always an
even-tenor sort of way. Sheep have been
known to be obstinate and that makes
their way sometimes an uneven kind of
tenor, not to say base. Years ago, when
the law permitted sheep to be driven
through the streets in the daytime, the
leader of passing flock jumped through
one door of blockaded street-ear and ran
out the other. With praiseworthy per-
sistence the entire flock of 200 followed
their leader as eager as crowd of school
boys "doing stunts" The company
didn't use that street-car for long time.
Most of the sheep thus driven come in
at the west side depots about Fifty-ninth
street. They come from Orange county,
this State, and from Kentucky and Ohio
principally. 1t is wise provision of ma
ture that Kentucky, the State that pro-
duces the best spring lamb, also produces
the best and most delightfully."- favored
mint The lamb and the mint sauce are
often indigenous to the same hillside.
These sheep that come all the way from
the bluegrass country are naturally not
used to the niceties and refinements of city
ways. Sometimes they do things that
the veriest chit of city bred lamb would
be ashamed to do. The other evening an
electric light threw broad CLINT of white
light across the street. The first animal
that came to it paused, punched its legs
together and with great leap cleared the
light space. Just 159 sheep followed and
jumped at this same beam of light, as if
it were ditch.
At the railway yards they keep little
pet lamb that lives kind of traitor life
It gets well acquainted with the sheep
that come in, and having secured their
confidence leads them across town to the
shambles. Then having fulfilled its mis-
sion the cosset goes back to the yards and
the next night betrays another flock the
same way. Thus it earns its feed at the
expense of the lives of other members of
its family and lives in clover while be-
traying the confidence of its trusting
friends. Anybody who knows the first
thing about animals can tell that this cosset
knows what it is doing. This Sunday
school-book talk about lamb-lke inno-
cence is all bosh. A lamb is generally
innocent because it can't help itself, but
give one chance to play this trick and
see how quickly it will accept. The lamb
must stop posing as picture of innocence.
| II is unmarked at last -Ne1n York W0rlH